Friday, 23 October 2009

Off for a relaxing week away in Derbyshire. My family are coming up from the south and we're heading down. Woo! Storeyshop is still open so order away as normal and I will make and/or post new orders when I get back next weekend. Have a lovely weekend and week everyone!

Thursday, 22 October 2009

I have just put the names of all my giveaway comment writers, followers and tweeters in to a hat (my tweed trilby was such a useful purchase) and the winner is, dum dum daaaaaaa, Janet! Thank you very much for all your entries. Another giveaway soon...

Also, see below for my first personalised Christmas card order for 2009. And it didn't get caught up in the dreaded postal strikes, woohoo! Order your custom Christmas number nice and early for the festive season in my shop now. I am going away on a little holiday next week (hurrah!) but will be back designing, cutting and posting at Storeyshop HQ on Monday 2nd November.

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

A recent Etsy discovery and my 'I Want' for this week are these gorgeous illustrations by Janice Jong at JaniceJ. London-based Janice is inspired by places she has been and books she has read among other things. I love the style of her illustrations and also the combination of black and white elements with bright colour. I have just realised I have picked a bit of a yellow theme with my favourites!

Love them and eyeing up the chair print especially. Christmas list maybe. I really want to get the house all sorted and decorated so I can get some great artwork on the walls very soon. Enjoy!

Monday, 19 October 2009

Half my weekend was very boring and involved my tax return and accounts sorting (eurgh) and half was brilliant and involved dinner at our favourite restaurant and an entire day off (yay)! Still haven't quite finished the boring Excel spreadsheets and tax form but have made a good start. Saturday night dinner was to celebrate mine and Dave's meeting (a very random, Sliding Doors-like, evening in Sussex 5 years ago) and took place in The Crown in Catton. The food was amazing as ever and we sat by a lovely open fire. Perfect.

On Sunday, we went to the 'Food and Craft Fair' at Wallington National Trust House and tasted (and bought) lots of nice locally-produced Northumberland food goodies. Always a nice change to wander round a craft fair as a buyer too, and not have to sit behind a stall getting cold and a numb bum! I then dragged my lovely fiance round a car boot sale. He hates them but we did find some fab vintage mugs.

Today has been a busy one with lots of card orders made and posted. I have also just listed this new card which I made on Friday...

Rememer, there's still lots of time to enter my new giveaway to win a card. See the post below and good luck. Thank you to all of you who have commented, followed and tweeted so far!

Friday, 16 October 2009

It's Friday and it has been a while since the first ever Storeyshop giveaway so I am at it again. I'm giving away one of my new, limited edition, laser cut cards!

You can choose an: 'I love you more than tea', 'I love you more than cake' or 'I love you more than cheese' card. Give it to that special someone for Christmas, their birthday, save it for Valentine's Day or just show your random appreciation after they take the bin out. Or, maybe you could send it to your Mum, Dad or friend? Share the love (the tea/cake/cheese part doesn't have to be true all of the time!)...

To enter is simples, and the different ways each count for one entry, so you can do more than one to increase your chances of winning. 1) Comment on this post; 2) Click to follow my blog; 3) Follow me on Twitter 4) Tweet or RT about the giveaway (add @Storeyshop and a link to this post -I'll keep a note of all the twitterers). You have until 10am next Thursday to enter and I will announce the winner on here and on Twitter at 6pm(ish) the same day. You can then choose which card you would like. Woo!

Happy Friday, happy commenting, happy tweeting and good luck. Oh, and have a fab weekend everyone...

Thursday, 15 October 2009

I'm in wedding mode again. I'm getting excited now that we have a venue and a date. I was slightly worried I was doing things in the wrong order choosing my dress (and shoes!) first and that my outfit wouldn't suit the venue we (eventually) chose but I'm happy that it will now and really looking forward to trying my dress on again!

I have been looking at accessories on Etsy and there are some lovely bits. I even managed to get a treasury to put my finds in. Woo!

Have had one of those days today where I have done quite a lot (honest I have) but it doesn't feel like I have achieved very much. Oh well, two more custom card orders posted and another one half finished. New ideas for Valentine's Day cards too. I know Christmas comes first but I love the lovey dovey cards!

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

...Again! Not quite sure how it got round to Wednesday again with no blog posts in between. Actually, I do. I had my day in London on Friday. I won't reveal too much until it comes out, but I did a photoshoot for a magazine (also, I want to see the finished feature before I tell everyone. Eeek I hope it's ok)! Well, the shoot was great but then I just about managed to get back up to Northumberland before being ill for the entire weekend. Yuk. Anyway, I am feeling loads better now so back to Storeyshop and blogging.

My 'I Want Wednesday' for today is inspired by the end of my mobile contract and the possibility of finally getting my hands on an iPhone! How nice are these these gorgeous phone and MP3 cases by On A Roll on Etsy? I love how tactile and handmade they are compared to the super high tech gadgets they are made for. They are all lovingly hand-knitted in the United States but the postage costs are very affordable worldwide. I think I'm going to go for the olive green one!

You can also find hand-knitted cup cosies (which double up as wrist warmers!) and cute little apple cosies so have a little look in On A Roll for yourself and for unique Christmas gifts. You can get gift vouchers too, so perfect if you can't decide which colour cosy to buy for that special someone.

Wednesday, 7 October 2009

I am waiting for my jacket potatoes to cook in the oven so perfect time for shopping! Dinner could be some time as our microwave blew up the other day so no giving the spuds a cheeky start in there. Going to have to splash out on a new one. Anyway, on to much more exciting things to spend the pennies on...

I have been browsing beautiful shops on Etsy to bring you another favourite and have come up trumps with these screenprinted beauties by UK-based, summersville. I love the patterns, the colours and the random but brilliant additions to lots of the photographs. Why not add some plastic cows or a toy car here and there? (I love that I have those Fisher Price figures from the last photo too!)

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

I'm back at Storeyshop HQ after a brilliant action-packed, long weekend down south. Hadn't been down for a few months so it was great to go back and see family and friends in London and Sussex. It made a nice change to be away from the computer for a few days too.

The weather was very kind to us... Sunday was lovely and sunny! It's miserable and dark today though and feels like proper winter. Maybe Sunday was the last 'no coat' and 'no socks' day of this year? Sniff.

Really busy catching up with orders this week and it's a short one as I have an exciting day planned on Friday which involves heading down to London again. I can't reveal what it's for yet but should be fun. Still haven't unpacked from the weekend and we came back, yet again, laden with stuff my parents had 'sorted out' for me to take to my own house! I better get tidying after I have taken todays orders to the Post Office.

No exciting photos from the weekend but here's a new custom monkey order, from last week, who I liked so much that I have bought more socks and made him available to buy from Storeyshop. And also some photos of when Seb met Monkey.

Thursday, 1 October 2009

The interview I mentioned a little while ago, that I did with Leah from Try Handmade is now live! I went on a bit in my interview so it's quite long (!) but fab. Please show it some love and leave a comment.

In other news, I am very excited by the brilliant feedback I have had lately on Etsy. Woo hoo, I love it when people are really happy with their Storeyshop cards! Here are a few photos of the New York-themed Bar Mitzvah card which went down well in the US recently...

Busy day today. I am finishing off a custom camouflage monkey for a lovely customer in Scotland and I have a few wedding card orders and a birthday one to get making. I have to tidy the office too, it's a mess.

Hi, I'm Helen and I live in South Yorkshire with my husband and little boy. I'm a graphic designer and paper engineer and I love it! As well as spending lots of time making Storeyshop personalised paper goodies, I can also be commissioned for papercutting work and model-making jobs, or booked for freelance magazine design and other graphic design work. I love comments so please say hello and let me know about your blogs, shops, loves or projects!